:VODAFONE: Traders Thread, Long or Short!

Vodafone does something right

Terrie Lloyd
December 22, 2005

With so much bad news coming out about Vodafone recently, it is good to see them doing something right. By that, I am referring to its release last week of Japan's first true wireless "push email" service, called Vodafone Office Mail. The new service is OEM'd to Vodafone by a company called Visto (www.visto.com) out of the U.S., and it involves near-real-time sending and receiving of office email and calendaring.

Now, you may say, that's not new, both DoCoMo and KDDI have remote office services on their handsets. However, the difference with the V-V solution is that it is a true push-based service, meaning that the Visto server detects mail and other data changes on a customer's office-based Microsoft Exchange server on a continuous basis, and when it detects a change or new data it then synchronizes that data by either sending or receiving it directly to/from your handset. You don't have to be connected all the time to actually read or respond to that mail and it's fast. This is ideal for commuters on trains or driving to work.

I saw the application on a test user's phone several days ago — apparently there are scores of companies already test-driving it here in Tokyo — and it's pretty cool. You can see everything that would normally sit on your Microsoft Exchange server in the office, and it updates fast. I think that this is one application which will become popular quickly and help Vodafone regain some of its cool factor.

Why will it be successful? Well, although both DoCoMo and KDDi have had their respective services for several years — the DoCoMo BinWan ("Bin" there), and the KDDI Keitai Office, they are both slow and hard to use. DoCoMo's is browser based, so you have to start and maintain a session, and wait for the screens to be painfully refreshed between pages. I've heard that they are also difficult to connect to Exchange.

So is there a market for cell phone-served office apps at all? Basically, think of the impact of the RIM BlackBerry device overseas. There is a proven human element at work where people get addicted to the ability to stay in touch by email all the time. Indeed, millions of businesspeople all over the world are so hooked, they recognize the withdrawal symptoms when they go on holiday without it.

There are a number of theories that I've heard about why the BlackBerry hasn't made it to Japan yet. Historically, the reason has probably been that the phone standards are different. However, with the appearance of KDDI's "2.75G" CDMA1x several years back, the Blackberry could in fact be launched in Japan anytime. But for some reason KDDI doesn't want to do that.

I can only speculate that KDDI sees several problems with the BlackBerry. First, the chunky form factor and keyboard are off-putting to Japanese users used to sleek domestic devices. Second, the BlackBerry business model does no favors to carriers, featuring a very meager profit sharing arrangement which turns the carrier into a bulk provider. If KDDI sees the V-V business grow, it is more likely to turn to Toshiba or someone similar and ask them to produce a competing service platform, than to capitulate to BlackBerry.

So, I think there will be no BlackBerry any time soon for Japan.

The Vodafone Office Mail service costs 525 yen per month for the application and data connectivity is a flat 3,900 yen per month. It's great to see new services like this starting up, and for a change, the foreigners are leading the way.

Oh, and one last interesting point about Visto. Take a look at their www.visto.com website and you'll see that they have entered a licencing agreement with a company called NTP. You may recall that these are the folks who are suing RIM in the USA for patent infringement and may well be responsible for shutting the BlackBerry service down in the States. Clearly the two partnered firms like tilting at windmills, because now Visto has just announced that it is suing Microsoft for IP infringements as well. Should be interesting to watch the developments here in Japan.

Terrie Lloyd is the founder of DaiJob, Inc. He also writes a weekly newsletter for entrepreneurs and business people about business and political opportunities in Japan. You can find the newsletter at www.terrie.com. For further contact with Terrie, email him at terrie.lloyd@daijob.com.